It came a day or two late for Thanksgiving, but congressional Republicans gave democracy lovers something to be thankful for over the holiday weekend: signs of spinal fortitude.
On Friday, the Republican chairman and ranking Democrat of the Senate Armed Services Committee vowed to investigate the Trump administration’s legally dubious practice of blowing up Venezuelan boats suspected of running drugs. The top members of the House Armed Services Committee soon followed suit. It seems that some Republican lawmakers are perturbed by reports that a strike on Sept. 2 might have veered into the category of war crime. Of specific concern are allegations that a “kill everybody” directive from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth led to a follow-up strike on two survivors clinging to the flaming wreckage of a boat demolished by an initial strike.
“Obviously, if that occurred, that would be very serious, and I agree that that would be an illegal act,” Representative Mike Turner, an Ohio Republican, said on “Face the Nation” on Sunday. Please, congressman. Tell us more.
President Trump’s hostility toward Venezuela, which includes threats of a ground operation, was already discomfiting many Republicans. Now, key lawmakers are talking about “vigorous oversight” and “directed inquiries” to the Pentagon regarding Mr. Trump’s Caribbean policy.
I realize the idea of this Congress getting serious about reining in Mr. Trump flies in the face of all we’ve seen so far. Republican lawmakers have allowed Mr. Trump to steamroll them on everything from imposing steep tariffs to clawing back funds already approved by Congress for various projects and agencies. Checks and balances is not a concept for which Mr. Trump has much use.
But this rare pushback is bigger than any one policy disagreement or operational misstep. It reflects the newly precarious situation in which the president finds himself. Through a mix of bad timing and the fallout from his own blunders, Mr. Trump is taking heat from multiple directions: He has let down some of the MAGA faithful at the same moment that his growing unpopularity and lame-duck status are opening the door for his congressional team to start inching away from him.
Let’s start with the more mundane factors sapping the president’s mojo. His No. 1 job in the eyes of those who voted for him last year, especially those outside the MAGA base, was to lower prices and shore up confidence in the economy. He has so far failed. People still feel pinched. His tariff machinations are unpopular. A recent Yahoo News/YouGov poll found that 49 percent of Americans think he has done more to raise prices versus only 24 percent who think he has done more to lower them.
Nor are his other signature moves generating much joy. Polling shows a majority of Americans disapprove of his handling of issues including health care, immigration and Ukraine. His overall approval is at a low for this term. Even his support among Republicans, while still high, has dipped.
This brewing disenchantment broke loose in last month’s elections, which Democrats dominated. It was a big ol’ red flag for Republicans desperate to keep their slim congressional majority in next year’s midterms.
Like all second-term presidents, Mr. Trump is also at the mercy of the calendar — a lame duck getting lamer by the second. Mr. Trump has a way of driving his voters to the polls when he is on the ballot, but his days as a presidential contender are done. Even under the best of circumstances, other Republicans would be pondering their future without him. But with a leader this unpopular, the need for post-Trump strategizing is all the more urgent.
Sure enough, we are seeing other pockets of resistance popping up among Republican lawmakers. Budget hawks have been openly chilly toward Mr. Trump’s idea to send Americans $2,000 “tariff dividend” checks. “We can’t afford it,” Senator Ron Johnson told Fox News last month. Speaker Mike Johnson had to break it to the White House that Mr. Trump’s proposal to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies for two years was a no-go for most House Republicans. And Mr. Trump’s Russia-friendly plan to end the war in Ukraine has been received extremely poorly by several Republican lawmakers, including former Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, Senator Roger Wicker and even the professionally obsequious Senator Lindsey Graham. Representative Don Bacon of Nebraska was so appalled by the plan, he told Axios, that he had considered resigning in protest.
Then there’s the Jeffrey Epstein debacle.
Mr. Trump’s fight to keep the Epstein files under wraps has been a giant pain for Republicans.
It was a sharp about-face from his vow to lead a crusade against above-the-law, left-wing elitists and has fueled suspicions that the president has something to hide. Within MAGA, it has caused friction and fractures, raising questions about Mr. Trump’s grip on the movement. The president wound up in a nasty public spat with Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of his fiercest defenders. For Ms. Greene, who has lately been unhappy with a variety of Mr. Trump’s moves, including the assault on health insurance coverage, this was the ultimate insult. She announced the week before Thanksgiving that she would resign from Congress in January.
Mr. Trump dealt another blow to the MAGA troops with his chummy White House meeting with Zohran Mamdani, New York City’s mayor-elect. A self-described democratic socialist, not to mention a Muslim and a naturalized American born in Uganda, Mr. Mamdani is precisely the sort of boogeyman Trumpists love to demonize. For months, Republicans had been painting him as a wild-eyed left-wing extremist. Mr. Trump had called him a “communist lunatic” and a “Jew hater.”
But when the two men got together two weeks ago, it was like the meet-cute scene in a rom-com: all smiles and gentle teasing and flattery. “The better he does, the happier I am,” said the president of his new friend.
This stupefied some Trump allies and MAGA commentators, who could not believe their hero had made nice with the enemy. Appalled that the president called Mr. Mamdani “rational,” Laura Loomer, the right-wing Trump whisperer, groused, “What’s the purpose of people voting in 2026 if the Democrat policies are ‘rational?’”
Well, the most straightforward reason to vote is that you support your team’s policies or values — or at least disapprove of the opposition’s. But that has never been enough for much of MAGA. For them, policy and ideology take a back seat to what they see as an existential clash between good and evil. Because of this, Mr. Trump has been able to change his mind, and his party’s position, about a host of issues without losing his core supporters. Why sweat the finer points of foreign policy or civil liberties when liberal elites are plotting to destroy America!
So when Mr. Trump pals around with Mr. Mamdani, one of the most vilified members of the enemy army, the cognitive dissonance is fierce.
Mr. Trump has insisted that he is MAGA and knows better than anyone what its devotees want. But the L’Affaire Epstein and the Mamdani love-in suggest he may be losing the thread. As the head of a movement rooted in grievance and pugilism, the president cannot go soft on his war against cultural elites and the radical left. When he goes off message, it threatens to destabilize a movement that allows no room for collaboration or good-faith differences.
This is a key reason that the fight over the G.O.P.’s post-Trump future will be so gripping. MAGA Republicanism is above all about attitude. Once its charismatic leader leaves the stage, it’s hard to know what foundation will remain on which to rebuild the party.
Whatever comes of Congress’s inquiries into the boat strikes, we are witnessing the start of a new political season for Mr. Trump. Barring a strategic turnaround, it promises to be an increasingly unpleasant one for him.
Michelle Cottle writes about national politics for Opinion. She has covered Washington and politics since the Clinton administration. @mcottle
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